The Only One He Ever Feared
by nagarani
Summary: 1957. Lord Voldemort flees the only home he has ever known.
_1957_

He had forgotten, after all these years, the strange feeling that erupted within him when those bright blue eyes looked at him with such reproof. Even this time he'd had the illogical desire to make them show something else – he wasn't sure what – and this caused him to lie about things he would not otherwise have motive to conceal. Something about Dumbledore's gaze struck him deep within, reawakening the drumbeat chant: _you are not enough, you will never be enough, you are an abomination, they will wipe you off the earth, thus you will always be in the eyes of humans._ He was conscious of the changes in his face and for the first time he put a label to them: monstrous. The last time Dumbledore had laid eyes on him had been before his trip to Albania, but the disgust Dumbledore showed him was exactly the same. There, that was reassuring. There was nothing he could have done that would have made Dumbledore give him the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Dumbledore had always viewed him as a subhuman life form, and always would.

It was just that he was finally starting to look the part.

Dumbledore had been sitting in his tacky office with a bloody phoenix perched next to him and Lord Voldemort had reacted to the condemnation not of the immortal magical creature but of the ridiculous old man who offered people spiked Muggle sweets to get them to spill their deepest secrets. Now that he had finished the interview, Lord Voldemort saw that it would have been unbearable to look upon that face every day and every day be found unworthy. He had miscalculated in his request and had been saved by something not of his own making. He gritted his teeth against the acid sting in his veins to hold at bay the urge to tear at his own flesh. He was stronger than this, dammit!

He badly needed to regroup, but there was another vital purpose to his visit here. Fortunately the Room was not far from Dumbledore's lair. He paced before it: _I need to cast off this poison and ensure that he cannot stamp me beneath his foot like the cockroach I clearly am to him._

The door emerged from the wall; he threw himself inside, fleeing down the crooked aisles of detritus cast off through the generations by those as desperate to cleanse themselves as he was. Unlike the books, toys, and assorted forbidden or shameful items, his soul poison took the form of a priceless relic that he had gone to great lengths to obtain, but as with most things in life it had been disappointing once it was finally his. It had caused him such anguish that he had begged for an interview on the day after his return to the country just to be rid of it.

Lord Voldemort stopped in front of a mirrored cabinet near a bust of someone unimportant. He reached deep into his cloak and pulled out Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, silver and glittering, with sapphires that matched his eyes. The first time he had donned it he'd been sure that this, here, was the final erasure of his pathetic origins. Then the diadem had started whispering to him and the panic pushed him into action. Before he had fully recovered from filling it with his essence he rushed back to Britain, choosing for it the hiding place that he would not be able to revisit. Better that it be lost to him forever.

Now, at the moment of parting, Lord Voldemort faced himself in the mirror and saw that his eyes were no longer blue. He realized with a shock that he could not recall the exact shade that they had been. There was only one way to rectify that – with shaking hands he lowered the diadem once more onto his head. The jewels of the frontpiece caressed his forehead and for a moment his eyes flashed to blue.

Then the voice started. _Tom,_ she said, _you know how this will end, and it will end. Everything ends. You cannot call yourself logical if you deny that. If you deny the facts, Tom, if you deny yourself, if you craft yourself into something else and run from inevitability you can only cause yourself more pain. Step off this path, Tom, it isn't too late. You have seen the problems in this society with a clearer eye than most and there are ways to create change that don't require you to slice yourself up—_

"No!" Tom rips Rowena Ravenclaw's wisdom off his head and flings it onto the table opposite the mirror. "No," he tells Rowena, "I am vulnerable without these anchors. Purebloods have their houses and their wealth, and I have my horcruxes. No one can make something of themselves without any foundation at all."

He turns away from her poisonous words and stalks out of Hogwarts, leaving his first and only home for the last time. He will not return until the hour of his death.

Perhaps if, instead of reproaching him she had told him that he was whole and worthy and human, and didn't need to hurt himself to prove himself, he might have listened to her. But she has not seen far enough into his soul to assuage his deepest wounds.


End file.
